Adult social care compliments, comments and complaints

We want you to be completely satisfied with our services, but to ensure this we need to know what you think.

Make a comment, compliment or complaint

See guidance for making a complaint if you have a learning difficulty.

Are you unhappy about something? Is there are problem with the service you are receiving?

Or would you like to thank us for something?

Only by listening to you can we give you the service you deserve. Any information you give us will only be shared with those who need to know.

You can:

• compliment - praise a member of staff, a team or a particular service
• comment - suggest ways to improve services
• complain - about a service, or the way you have been treated

Our housing and adult social care departments, and the various NHS organisations that cover Luton (including the LD Hospital, Primary Care Trust and SEPT which provides mental health services for adults), are working together to provide a single complaints procedure.

Together we are committed to listening, responding and learning from your comments and complaints.

As we are working together, you won’t need to try to figure out who to talk to - just let any staff member from any of the organisations know your comment or complaint and they will take this forward for you.

Our aim is to work with you to:

• get agreement to the best way of finding a satisfactory outcome to your complaint
• make it easier for you to tell us what you think or to make a complaint
• help us learn from complaints and make necessary changes

Mistakes can happen but when something has gone wrong we need to know so that we can apologise and take the appropriate steps to prevent it happening again.

What you can expect from us

We will:

• acknowledge within three working days that we have received your complaint and offer to discuss it further
• make sure that you can have your say - explaining how to use the complaints procedure and providing any necessary support such as an advocate or translator. You can use an organisation called Community ConneX which will help to support you during the process
• deal efficiently with all complaints and investigate them properly and appropriately
• If your complaint involves two or more organisations, you will get a single co-ordinated response
• write and let you know once the complaint has been dealt with, explaining how it has been resolved and any action take

You have the right to take the matter further to the Health Service Ombudsman or Local Government Ombudsman

If you think you have been directly affected by an unlawful act or decision of an NHS body and are still unhappy with the reply from the NHS, you can make a claim for judicial review.

You may receive compensation where an individual has been harmed by negligent treatment.

If you have been through all stages of our complaints process, you can ask the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to consider your complaint.

The Ombudsman has issued a Complaint Handling Code which sets out advice and guidance for councils on how to handle complaints. You can find more information about this on the Ombudsman’s website (Complaint Handling Code - Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman).

The Ombudsman investigates complaints in a fair and independent way - it does not take sides. It is a free service.

The Ombudsman expects you to have given us a chance to deal with your complaint, before you contact them. 

About the ombudsman

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman looks at individual complaints about councils and some other organisations providing local public services. It also investigates complaints about all adult social care providers (including care homes and home care agencies) for people who self-fund their care. There are some limits on what the Ombudsman can look at. For example, the Ombudsman may not consider your complaint if you have not been significantly personally affected by the issue you are raising, or if you have a right of appeal to a court or tribunal. 

Contact:
W: www.lgo.org.uk
T: 0300 061 0614

You can also download a version of this wording in Easy Read (pictures and words) format .